G E R M A N EA V I L A · C O N D E · C R U Z · D E O S O · E S C A Ñ O · O R D A

· P A S C U A L · P I O S · R A M O S · Y U

THE 56TH SILLIMAN UNIVERSITY NATIONAL WRITERS WORKSHOP

A Chapbook

Collection

ATTENTION

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

About the Workshop 1

Workshop 2017 3

Mentors 4

Poetry 7

George Deoso

Planner 9

what we cannot give for a handshake with time? 10

Jam Pascual

Nadagit 13

Hezron Pios

Good, Good Boy 17

Beware the Ides 18

Sight IV 19

Vincen Yu

Nine 21

Wolves 23

Creative Non-Fiction 27

Tiff Conde

Landing in Siquijor, the fire trees not yet in bloom 29

Catherine Orda

Prologue 31

To the mentors, staff, and friends made

along the way...

1

ABOUT THE WORKSHOPThe National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete is the oldest of its

kind in Asia. For its first 50 years, it was directed by the late National

Artist for Literature Dr. Edith L. Tiempo, along with her husband

and workshop co-founder, the late Dr. Edilberto K. Tiempo. Since

1962, it has trained generations of writers, many of whom helped

shape, and continue to influence, the face of English-language

Philippine Literature.

Fiction 37

Arlene Avila

The Deadline 39

Tanya Cruz

Summer Storm 47

Cesar Miguel Escaño

A Cat Named Lola 51

Matthew Jacob Ramos

The Final Bullet 57

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WORKSHOP 2017The photo above was taken on May 10, 2017 at Jabel’s Resort in Dauin, Negros Oriental.

Pictured here, from top left to right: Gemino Abad, George Deoso, Catherine Orda, Jam Pascual, Tanya Cruz, Tiff Conde, Arlene Avila, Vincen Yu, Matthew Jacob Ramos, Cesar Miguel Escaño, Hezron Pios, Neil Garcia

Bottom left to right: Alfred Yuson, Sharon Dadang-Rafols, Jaime An Lim, Jose Wendell Capili, Virginia Stack

THE 56TH SILLIMAN

University National

Writers Workshop began on

May 7, 2017 and lasted a total

of two weeks. Within that time,

the staff and participants divided

their stay among the Rose Lamb

Sobrepeña Writers Village in

Valencia, the university campus,

and on two occasions, in beach

resorts in Negros Oriental.

There, fellows and visitors

honed their craft with guidance

from some of the best writers

the Philippines has to offer.

This chapbook from the fellows

collects the works inspired by

their stay, as well as all the things

they have learned.

54

MENTORSJaime An Limfinished his AB in English (cum laude) from Mindanao State University in Marawi City, his MA in Creative Writing from Silliman University, and his PhD in Comparative Literature from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

J. Neil C. Garciateaches creative writing and comparative literature in the UP Diliman, where he serves as director of the university press and a fellow for poetry in the Institute of Creative Writing.

WORKSHOP 2017

César Ruìz Aquinowas in the very first national writers workshop. However, the author now says he can no longer claim to be the country’s most lyrical poet after seeing the recent love poems of Wilfredo Pascua Sanchez and Erwin E. Castillo.

Grace R. Monte de Ramosis a product of Silliman University’s creative writing program. She has been a teacher of literature, a government bureaucrat, a cultural worker, stay-at-home mom, and freelance journalist, editor, and translator.

Ian Rosales Casocotis a novelist and teaches film, literature, and creative writing in Silliman University. He was Founding Coordinator of the Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center.

Alfred A. YusonA.k.a. “Krip,” has authored 28 books thus far, including novels, poetry collections, short fiction, essays, children’s stories, biographies and coffee-table books, apart from having edited various titles that include several anthologies.

Gémino H. AbadUniversity Professor Emeritus of literature and creative writing at the University of the Philippines, poet, fictionist, anthologist, and literary critic.

Susan S. Larawrites fiction and nonfiction. She has won the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, Focus Literary Awards, and the National Book Award from the Manila Critics Circle.

Jose Wendell P. Capiliearned his degrees from UST, UP Diliman University of Tokyo, University of Cambridge and The Australian National University, where he completed his PhD from 1972 to 2007.

D.M. Reyesis author of the poetry collection Promising Lights. He has an MA in Literature (English) from the Ateneo de Manila University and is on the faculty of Ateneo’s English Department and its Fine Arts Program.

POETRY“When the imagination sleeps,words are emptied of their meaning.”

Albert Camus

98

Planner

I stopped creating blueprints for my life with bullet

points somewhere in October this year. My life,

itemized for the future:

• Buy honey

• Write Philippine Literature Paper

• Meet R.

• Buy candles for the dead

The last point was the final item for the 31st,

and it seemed wrong to follow it up

with another agenda, it seemed

I’ve traced death itself with my pen,

with my clean, bare hands.

GEORGE DEOSO

an AB Literature graduate of the University of Santo Tomas.

His short stories “Road Reblocking” and “The Short Curious Life of Mr. Clock-man” won second place for the fiction category of the 30th Gawad Ustetika and the Best Entry for Prose category in the 2015 edition of Dapitan, respectively.

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what we cannot give for a handshake with time?

where the end of sunlight begins

warmth engulfed like old flames

the wings of a butterfly landing on the zinnias

my mother planted in our yard

time was in the pollen it failed to find in the young shrubs

the butterfly must’ve sighed, before bearing itself away

holding her back, my mother bends low

to water the potted plants

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JAM PASCUAL

is a Creative Writing graduate of Ateneo de Manila University.

His poetry has been published in Public Pool and Rambutan Literary. He has also written mostly for the publications Rogue and Young Star.

Nadagit

The saltwater air is pungent;

maybe that’s your fault.

You walk along the bay

lugging your driftwood heart,

hoping some wandering demigod of wind

blows the heavy off your joints. You were

told the small gods still live here, as undetectable

as sorrow—only for so long, in this place, which lies

serene on the tectonic platework of myth,

or at least whatever myth you invented

when you touched the water. Disrespectful

of you to expect so much. You want to take this

all in, steal as much of this place into your lungs

as possible, but what does the ocean air portend?

What did your greed summon? There

in the distance, the city

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lurching on long arachnid limbs

sloshing through the dark water,

its rock underbelly bursting

with ghosts and rusted pipework,

dripping with the real.

1716

Good, Good Boy

Pistol posed at will, a pispis

is reduced to a pinkness

of unod-unuran. Then, omen.

I wouldn’t mind articulating holy

remains of kabuhi

parched by endless

bangs. Anak ng putangina, the Boy

says, lording over the trigger pronouncing

death through his spitting

shaft. I close my eyes in pretense:

none of this is real enough. Not the pistol,

not the pispis, not even greatness. Everything

made of plush and cheap plastic—

I swallowing omens.

HEZRON PIOS

Taking up Liberal Arts and Commerce; Major in Communication and Marketing Management at the University of St. La Salle—Bacolod.

He is a magazine writer and contributor for The Spectrum, the university’s official media corps, which has garnered numerous regional awards.

1918

Beware the Idesfor Astra

What resolves this grace of July

is urgency, is utterance of wings

teeming helium there’s no use

in parsing stars knitted by past

lives, orbits or Zen after picking

up bones pared by volition rinse

your hands in a bowl of hues not

shade as a split tongue’s thriving

on the eighth leaf of your days’

catalogue with only yours missing

or maybe if you pleat mistruth

like hibiscus your teeth might

sing rhapsodies white and even

Sight IV

In this room hereby declares objects

of space: armchair, El Filibusterismo,

dead language of gestures. Guess excuses

clutch whatever’s left from insistence.

The god of windows is angry at us

I suppose. Between notes of dogma

comes vowels, consonants from palm

to palm reading. The key to dismantle

this framework is by apt misnaming.

After Tala Mundi

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Nine

Nine meant bedtime,

but we were stuck to the screen,

as the second plane struck

steel and metal skeleton, and glass

and paper and misplaced lipstick

rained on cabs and clueless tourists.

The same clips in every channel:

paused, rewound, zoomed,

father chiming in, mother silent

beside me on the couch, her stitching

idle on the parquet. No flipping over

to cartoons, or racy music videos

my cousins shared in secret,

or animals photographed from safari trucks.

The next day bore the smell

of new memory, a shift in language and gait,

the image imprinted on every front page:

VINCEN YU

recently graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Medicine-Philippine General Hospital under the 7-year Intarmed program.

He is a contributing theater reviewer for the Philippine Daily Inquirer and member of the jury of the Philstage Gawad Buhay! Awards for the Performing Arts.

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a pair of smoking towers, a burst of flame,

the shadow of a man suspended midair.

Father could be the man:

afternoon coffee, a beard, no religion,

a heart attack in nine years.

Or me: too young and feebleminded

to understand coffee or religion,

but smart enough to know

I’d break his heart in nine years,

bedtime with a nameless lover,

broke, unphotographed.

The next evening I slept soundly,

while my parents took their places

on the couch, reporters blaring

from the idle screen. The next evening,

they told me to join them;

the next evening, there was only the sound

of my growing hunger for photographs

thrust between size-nine text.

Wolves

“Here is the Ossorio that fascinated me most… his vanity ego, his

‘Catolico Cerrado’ guilt over his sexual preference, his desire to

break free of his past and prevailing artistic convention… In his

memoir of the Victorias period, Ossorio makes mention of young

male assistants who helped him paint the [‘Angry Christ’] mural.”

—Floy Quintos on painter Alfonso Ossorio.

He believes there are wolves

in the woods of Victorias, howling

dissonant melodies late at night.

I tell him, there are no wolves

this side of the world, only lovers

flinching at the slightest creak of the door,

hands ready to pretend they are tired

from washing the dishes all day.

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Gazing at the outline of his lips,

the slight dip down his delicate nose,

I tell him, go back to sleep, go back

to dreams. His hands are cold

against mine, skin rubbing against skin,

musk mixing in the dark. I tell him,

tomorrow you will finish those hands

tired from days of shaping mountains,

sky, pasture, the perfect arc of man’s rib.

Tomorrow, a kiss so quiet, a twirl

of dancing tongues, a song

of words long forgotten.

CREATIVE NON-FICTION“Get your facts first, and then youcan distort ‘em as much as youplease.”

Mark Twain

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TIFF CONDE

is a memoirist from Quezon City. Her essays have been honored by Ateneo de Manila University and the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Landing in Siquijor, the fire trees not yet in bloom

I wanted to stay there long enough to wait for them, the sun melting

into the ocean and our boat gliding farther away from the shore.

Tomorrow I am going to walk a mile and think of how the power

outage brought down all the fireflies on our first night in Valencia.

Where, bent over my notes in the green light of morning I tried

to resist hurry as best as I could. It was difficult to write in long

sentences, so I gathered into my journal all the nattering birds and

insects. Eyelashes on a leaf blade. Pieces of the yellow gumamelas

scattered in front of my cottage. What the blue whale in the sky had

looked like as we wrapped our poetry around the acacia tree. How

we trudged through the wet grass of the fields, the night sky pocked

with so many stars it was almost cruel.

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Prologue

May in the city is warm and sticky. A mixture of sun-scent and salt

perfumed the air. Sprinklings of sunlight glinted off the tops of the

twenty or so cars that lined the street. The cars moved grudgingly

slow for a few seconds, and then they bolted, suddenly unhindered,

unhinged. I was in one of these cars, and this was my first pleasant

encounter with bad traffic. In the car (small, black, intimate), there

was conversation (fun and light and slightly polite). About my plane

ride and schools and jobs and the city. About writing and teachers

and where to get tacos and beer and coffee. By the time we reached

the university, two things ran in my head--first of which was that I

would like to retire in this city. At maybe 30. The second thing was a

lot less significant, a lot more prosaic.

It had something to do with feelings, and was not one that you

could call a Particularly Original Opinion. The second thing was this:

I felt happy to be there—so much so that I didn’t reflexively resort

to asking myself the question, what do you mean you’re happy? There

wasn’t a need for qualifications then; no need for clear definitions,

for trying to figure out the subtle differences between joy and mere

pleasure. Everything was fodder for laughter, for instant elation: I

smiled dumbly at the sight of the red-roofed colossal structure we

were approaching, at the crunch of the tires wheeling against the

road as we parked; I found pure bliss at the cadenced, melodious

CATHERINE ORDA

is a fourth year economics major in De La Salle University - Manila, where she writes monthly feature articles for The Lasallian. She lives in Quezon City.

3332

banter of my two companions--not at all minding the fact that I didn’t

understand a word of what they were saying to each other.

Led into a classroom, I took notice of eight familiar-looking

strangers. They sat in little desk chairs, some of them hunched, some

of them slightly leaning back. I remember an oversized polo shirt,

a flowy floral skirt, a plain black shirt, and maybe a baseball cap?

I remember strategically positioned suitcases, a delayed chorus of

hellos. I remember sweet, unsuspecting smiles and grace and reticence

and chattiness. All this I took in, yet it wasn’t easy ignoring this weird,

almost obsessive instinct to verbalize the sense of recognition and

kinship I felt towards these strangers.

It was like meeting the characters in a short story I had

read a few months back. As we were handed our food stipends, I

consoled myself with the fact that despite the many borderline creepy

implications of that thought, at least it was a short story, and not a

novel, that I had in mind. The latter would have suggested a level

of intimacy that was often associated with things like marriage and

stalking. There was then some talk about a picnic and a poetry reading

in the Rizal boulevard. On a Sunday, by an acacia tree. Also: book

launches, lectures, and mentoring sessions next week. A two-week

literary exploit in a city with pleasant bad traffic. Nothing could have

spoiled my mood then.

At maybe about half past six, we were bound for the writers’

village in the hills of Valencia. Settled on the creased seats of the

university’s famous bus (bright red letters on a once-white surface),

we bobbed along to the aggressive rattling of the vehicle--our warped

voices competing with the noise of the engine as we tried to cover the

basics. Age, school, favorite author, how we were feeling. My seatmate

was 23 years old; she was from ADMU, her favorite author was Toni

Morrison, and she was feeling excited and a bit nervous. I was feeling

nervous, too. About my suitcases.

I was convinced that they’ve skidded off the vehicle, their

insides sprawled across the road. The one word in my head at that

moment was irretrievable--a word so often misused, it turns out. Some

of my co-fellows slept; some of them looked out the windows, slightly

recoiling every now and then to dodge the surprise graze of a tree

branch. I am quite certain that my memory is failing me, and that

my characteristic detachment from anything logistics-related and a

propensity to resort to hyperboles are all that I am using to recall what

happened next. What happened next was that the road got narrower

and narrower and the myriad surrounding sneaky trees all but closed

in on us.

But there were talented and formidable writers with writerly

aspirations and world-changing ambitions in that bus, so of course

the vehicle prevailed, seamlessly gliding across the narrow, narrow

road, and eventually emerging from the sneaky, sneaky trees. I should

also mention that this mostly-faux bus adventure didn’t see any of us

3534

letting out sounds that suggested feelings of fear or discomfort. We

were a very well-behaved batch. Batch But-an.

Had these trees succeeded in engulfing us, I never would have

known how it would feel to sit amongst and freely converse--on a

daily basis--with kind, brilliant, and generous writers (hint: equal parts

maddening apprehension and addictive exhilaration); I never would

have known the joy that came with a shot of Ciao Bella’s famous

chupitos and a plate of churros, the exciting despair that came with

being denied a table in five different restaurants on the night of

Mother’s Day, the sense of wonder and depth that permeated even

the most mundane and awkward conversations, the cheap luxury that

is the 8-peso tricycle ride, the delight that is rereading the story The

Woman of Sta. Barbara, the use of the word peppered in the poem Her

New Church, the alarming verisimilitude of the essay The Hunt.

We arrived in the writers village, performing the necessary banalities

that soon proved to be a crucial bit of some plain and life-changing

truths with which I was yet to be acquainted. The hauling of our

suitcases and the unpacking of our stuff, reading the workshop

guidelines and arranging our toiletries with the diligence of a

spinster—these mundane rituals were germane to the discovery of

certain important facts. These important facts include the following:

i.) The struggling-artist-vs-philistine stereotype is nothing

but a false dichotomy.

ii.) You need to get over yourself. Otherwise, everything you

write will be empty and solipsistic.

iii.) There is nothing romantic about being a writer.

iv.) An ostensible digression that has to be made: to this day,

Dumaguete city makes me cry.

But these were lessons yet to be learned, memories and scenes yet to

be played out. And so we prepared ourselves for the coming days.

FICTION“Fairy tales are more than true:

not because they tell us that dragons exist,but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

Neil Gaiman

3938

The Deadlinechosen for publication in the journal “Ricepaper”

A week before my twenty-ninth birthday, my mother staged a one-

woman intervention. The entire family was at home in our house in

Coquitlam for the usual Friday dinner but mother and I were alone

in the kitchen. I had helped her set the table and I was sitting in my

spot at the table, texting Albert, waiting for the rest, when she sat

beside me.

“You’re running out of time, Sandra,” she said, using a

tone that she used for sharing secrets. There was an unspoken

rule among Filipinos that you had to be married before you hit

thirty-one. Since the longest month had thirty-one days, somebody

had established it as the age-deadline for getting married. No one

questioned it. Everyone just followed it. One of the painful jokes

Filipinos said was, “You’re way past the calendar-deadline.”

I looked at my mother’s brown and wrinkled face and it

surprised me to see that she had grown old. She had a small angular

face and slit eyes that made her look more Chinese than Filipino.

My mother had migrated to Canada on an entrepreneur visa in

2005. She opened and ran a Filipino store singlehandedly for a

year until my father and two older siblings followed in 2006. I was

a college freshman in Tourism and I stayed behind in Manila until

graduation. I spent my summers in British Columbia but being

away from everyone most of the year formed a gap between me

ARLENE AVILA

is an MFA Creative Writing student at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

She is in the editorial board of PRISM International and has translated children’s stories for The African Storybook project at UBC.

4140

and my family that just kept getting wider. In my head, though,

I often had conversations with mother and in those imaginary

conversations, she was the mother that I had when we were in the

Philippines.

“Do you want to know what I learned in class today? Feminism.

“Do you wanna hear what Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer said?

“Do you wanna know what makes me tick?

“You have two more years till the calendar-deadline.”

“I know, Mama.”

“Let me tell you something, Sandra Gomez.”

“I’m listening, Mama.”

“When I married your father, I was in love with someone

else. The other guy was taking his time while I was running

out of time. When your father proposed, I said yes.” I’m never

shocked by anything. Or at least I don’t show it in my face. My

Philosophy professor who had subscribed to the notion of the Four

Temperaments had said this was characteristic of phlegmatic people.

“Did Papa know?” I reached up behind me, gathered my

hair and twisted it in a loose bun.

“I don’t think so, no. But it turned out well, because I have

you and Winnie and Carlito and I ended up loving your father.”

My mother liked to maintain normalcy. If she couldn’t

have normal, she fought for the appearance of normal. Normal

marriage, normal family, normal kids. Fall-in-love-marry-have-kids

normal. For her to revise family history was contrary to everything

she believed in. Perhaps she had sensed that I had sworn against

marriage. Mothers were powerfully psychic sometimes. I should

have discussed feminism and existentialism with her when the

lectures were fresh. The intellectual gymnastics had become a blur

and all I was left with was a libertine lifestyle that had grown out of

those liberal ideas.

Most of my aunts and uncles had unhappy marriages and

only my parents had the perfect one. I knew no one was like my

father and I knew I could never be like my saintly mother so in a

twisted kind of way, my parents’ ideal marriage led me to reach the

conclusion that I was never going to get hitched. In high school, I

discovered boys were useful because they could make me feel good

so I allowed myself to enjoy them. In college, I realized they were

really useful, so I kept on having fun. I even discovered thinkers who

gave me rationalizations for my choices and behavior. When I began

working, I let the fun escalate.

“Yes, Mama. I will try. My best. No promises, though,” I

heard myself lying. I wished she were young again so I could defy

and disobey her. Denying her something when she was old was

too mean. I wanted to make her old age nice and pleasant. She

wasn’t sick or dying or anything. Thinking of her as a young bride

marrying someone she didn’t love was brutal. Of course, women all

over the world had done it all the time from the beginning of time. I

didn’t care about them. I cared about my mother.

“There must be someone, Sandra. There are so many

Catholic boys out there.”

4342

Indeed, there was someone. There was Albert. I was about to end

things with him but I was too lazy to start over and look for someone

new.

We were both teachers in Gladstone Secondary. He taught

Science and I taught Social Studies. I had been in Gladstone for

two years when he came to take the place of someone who had

retired. He had a round face that reminded me of my favorite

pork steamed buns and biceps that bulged through his shirt. I liked

him right away. At first I thought he was Punjabi but in the faculty

meeting, he introduced himself by saying he was from Fiji. His

classroom was B2510, just across mine, which was B2509.

“Do you know that you look like Jane the Virgin,” Albert

said to me as we walked back to our rooms after the faculty meeting.

“Oh yeah. Strangers talk to me in Spanish all the time. In

the Skytrain, bus stops, everywhere. No soy Latina, Senor. Soy Filipina.”

“Me, too. A lot of Indians and Fijians talk to me. It’s funny

because we ignore each other back home but here we treat each

other as long lost friends.”

“I know. And we go overseas so we can meet other people,

experience other cultures and then we form our own Chinatowns,

Korean towns, Filipino communities…”

“It’s our way of dealing with homesickness, I guess.”

“Until it becomes something else.”

“Maybe. Our parish priest is Filipino, by the way.”

“Who?”

“Fr. Amador Abundo.”

“We belong to the same church!”

“But I don’t see you there.”

“I’m a sporadic Catholic. I’m too lazy.”

“It’s a little too far from Coquitlam, isn’t it?” St. Mary’s

Church was near Joyce-Collingwood Skytrain.

“My father wants to put up another store. And St. Mary’s

happens to have the highest number of Filipinos. Sooo mercenary,

right. Please don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t if you have dinner with me.”

“Deal.”

“But how perfect is the priest’s name for his job.”

“Lover abundant?”

“Or abounding in love? Excessive lover?”

“Where did your name come from?”

“My mother was obsessed with Prince Albert.”

“Queen Victoria’s…

“The very same.”

I didn’t really like teaching. Papa wanted me to be in a

school because it was one of the best ways to network. As a rule,

we never missed any parents’ meeting in my nephews’ and nieces’

schools. It was an opportunity to meet people and give out flyers and

business cards for the dental clinic, restaurant and grocery store. I

was going to run the store one day so I did what Papa wanted. He

believed in word of mouth advertising and I believed in the social

media but I respected that he was not ready for it. Time enough for

4544

me to innovate when it was my turn to run the show.

“Who needs a billion likes on Facebook? I don’t want those

strangers coming to my store. Who knows what they’re up to?” I

could have demolished that idea easily but he was my father.

Albert started joining us for Friday dinner and my parents

seemed happy I had found a good Catholic boy. So now I had to

break it off with Milo.

Milo and I had been hooking up for seven months. We met

in Filipinos in Lower Mainland (FILM), one of the chat rooms

on MIRC. It was my habit to spend a few minutes there before

going to bed. I told myself it was a good cure for insomnia. Milo

was supposed to be just a one-night thing but we found ourselves

meeting again and I was too lazy to stop the fun. I was pleasantly

surprised that on some level, I resisted this parting. Forming some

sort of attachment to someone meant I was capable of feeling

something.

“You’re getting married?” I had stayed the night in his Delta

townhouse and he was seated across from me, over breakfast of

almond croissants and coffee.

“I’m sorry, Milo.”

“We could still…you know. Until the wedding.” He was

a pilot in the Philippine Airlines assigned to the Los Angeles-

Vancouver-Manila route and whenever he came to see me, I

imagined him bringing a slice of the Philippines or a whiff of

Manila Bay or a chorus of Filipinos speaking in 170 languages and

I opened my arms to him eagerly. His family owned five outlets for

package delivery service in Lower Mainland, catering mostly to

Filipinos who love sending big boxes of goodies back home.

“Did you know that every year, Filipinos from all over the world send 7

million packages home?”

“But there’s 12 million out there? What are the rest doing?”

“The bad ones send cash?”

“I’m more interested in this package…”

“No, I couldn’t. It’s not nice.” I placed my napkin on the

table and walked over to his side and kissed the top of his head.

“Tempting, but no.” I have no idea how often I borrowed Julia

Roberts’ line from Notting Hill for times like this but I liked to think

it worked. If they caught the allusion, it was fine. If not, it was fine,

too.

One week before my thirty-first birthday, I stood at the church-

door wearing a long white dress, carrying a bouquet of

sampaguitas. Albert was standing near the altar, waiting for me. I

had underestimated my mother’s event planning skills and found

myself blown away by Thunderstorm Mama. I had to stop being

lazy if I wanted to live my life the way I wanted it. And soon. In

the meantime, I consoled myself with the thought that forty-three

percent of marriages in Canada end up in divorce. This was not

going to be forever, thank goodness.

4746

Summer Storm

Life goes on swimmingly, right up until the moment it doesn’t.

It’s a Friday night. You’re out with Misery, relishing in the

relatively cool breeze that breaks through the muggy night air as you

walk home. You feel uncomfortably sticky, the fabric of your shirt

sticking irritatingly to your skin. Misery’s oddly withdrawn tonight—

quiet in a way you’re not used to. You want to ask, but it’s proving

difficult to form the words. You’ve learned to keep your doubts and

concerns to yourself. Desire’s taught you well.

He brushes his fingers against the back of your hand care-

fully, so lightly that you thought you’d imagined it. You stop, turning

to face him, a question ready. But he raises his hand, the very tips of

his fingers pressing against the skin of your cheek, his thumb tenderly

caressing the bottom corner of your eye just the once. This, you think

faintly, is the first time he’s ever touched you. The realization robs the

question from your lips, punches the air out of your lungs, leaving you

to stare wide-eyed at him, heart tipping into a frenzy.

The seconds pull tight as they stretch over the moment. You

swallow around a dry mouth. He steps closer, the length of his body

a mere hair’s breadth away from yours, and your hands twitch with

TANYA CRUZ

is a licensed pharmacist, currently taking up MA Creative Writing at the University of Santo Tomas.

Her works have won at the yearly Gawad USTETIKA, 3rd place in Poetry (2015) and 1st place in Essay (2016). She was also a fellow in the University of Santo Tomas National Writers Workshop.

4948

the rush of desire to touch him back. There’s a storm crackling in

his eyes, and his proximity allows you to breathe in the scent of rain

and lightning and your entire body hums with the desperate desire

to arch and press against him— to see if he tastes like the ozone like

you think he does. The possibility leaves you lightheaded and reckless.

He tilts his head, nose brushing against the side of yours, the length

of his eyelashes tickling the arch of your eyebrow and the bridge of

your nose. You press the palms of your hands against his chest, nails

digging into the fabric, the hairs at the back of your neck prickling

with want. You think you can stay like this forever if you could. But

the moment breaks, as it always does, and breaks you along with it.

Do you still think of her? he asks you simply, intent and unsym-

pathetic and underneath all that agonized, but still acting for all the

world like he hasn’t gutted you open while you were unsuspecting,

exposing your wrecked heart for all to see. Misery has always been

selfish, always been upfront, wearing his affected indifference like ar-

mor, but you’ve never pegged him to be heartless.

His hand falls to his side, and he smiles as if this entire thing

is humorous somehow. You can’t peel your hands away, even if you

know you should. But his eyes are boring into yours and he doesn’t

step away and neither will you.

What do you want, Love?

Your name on his lips jolts you, sending a shockwave through

the numbness and mindless denial you’ve used as a crutch to survive

the days without her.

It’s starting to drizzle. Your hair is slowly growing damp and

sticking to the sides of your face. You watch as his eyelashes clump

together in a stunned sort of silence. You lick your lips, and a thrill

shoots through you as his eyes latch onto the movement.

I want to forget, you admit, smiling like cracked glass.

He kisses you, bearing down those few increments of space,

catching your doubts in his mouth.

Alright, he whispers into your ear. Let’s forget.

5150

A Cat Named Lola

My grandmother lived in a house filled with cats. She adopted

all of them through the years except for a black cat named Lola. She

once said that she named her Lola so she could call somebody else

“Lola” and she wouldn’t feel so old after all.

I couldn’t tell if my grandmother was joking or not. She told

all of her stories, imagined or true, with a smile on her face.

My grandmother once told me that she started adopting stray

cats after her husband, my grandfather, died. That was ten years ago.

Since then, the number of cats had grown too many to count. I asked

my grandmother how many cats she had but she said it was hard to

keep count.

I once tried to count all of them but they wouldn’t stay still.

Some would play with each other and run around the room. Others

would play with me and stay just out of reach for me to place stickers

on their collars to make the counting easier. I managed to place

stickers on the collars of a few but they would quickly run away to the

next room. I would give chase only to find the sticker on the floor and

the cat whose collar I placed it on nowhere to be found.

The only cat who stayed in one place was Lola the black cat.

Whenever I visited my grandmother, Lola sat on my lap and turned

herself over until her bellybutton was staring at me. I would scratch

her belly until she stopped purring. Thinking she had fallen asleep

MIGUEL ESCAÑO

He taught college English at the Ateneo de Manila for 10 years. Prior to that, he was a reporter for BusinessWorld for 2 years. He contributes feature articles to newspapers such as the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Manila Bulletin and magazines such as Mabuhay Magazine.

5352

since she was making no sound and her belly was gently rising and

falling, I would slowly lift my fingers and move my hand away. No

sooner than I thought I had safely gotten my hand back, Lola’s furry

body would rub against my arm and I would go back to rubbing her

belly.

Lola was the only cat in my grandmother’s house without a

collar. I once asked my grandmother about this and she said that she

didn’t really own Lola. She was just giving Lola a place to stay and

rest when Lola wasn’t working.

“Who owns Lola?” I asked my grandmother. “What do you

really mean by Lola working? She’s a cat.”

“Lola works magic, my dear,” she said, smiling at me. “Nobody

owns Lola. She keeps people company, especially those who need

her.”

“What do you mean by those who need her?” I asked my

grandmother.

“Let’s follow Lola when she goes out,” she said to me.

Over the years I visited my grandmother, Lola would

sometimes leave the house while I rubbed her belly. I would ask my

grandmother where Lola went but she would always answer me with

a smile: “Lola goes where she’s needed.”

Most of the time, Lola wouldn’t be back when I left my

grandmother’s house so I always wondered where she had gone and

what she was doing wherever it was she was needed.

I hoped that someday I would get the chance to find the

answers.

Until that day arrived, I was happy to visit my grandmother

and keep rubbing Lola’s belly. Underneath my fingers stroking

her skin, Lola’s belly gently rose and fell. While I talked with my

grandmother, Lola purred contentedly on my lap.

My parents always dropped me off at my grandmother’s house

on the way to the dry goods market. We sold holiday ornaments and

decorative items. They used to bring me with them but I always had

an asthma attack because the places we went to were filled with dust.

My grandmother’s house was always clean even if she did not have

a helper. She once told me that cleaning, knitting and taking care of

her cats kept her occupied.

My mom once asked her mother, my grandmother, if she

needed to have so many cats around the house. My parents were

worried that their fur would cause my asthma to act up.

My grandmother turned to me and asked me a question,

“Are you having difficulty breathing, apo?”

“No, Lola, I mean Grandma, my breathing is fine.”

After I found out about Lola the cat, I took to calling my

grandmother by a different name. I used to mix their names a lot at

first, calling Lola the cat “Grandma” and my Grandmother “Lola.”

My grandmother would just chuckle and said she didn’t mind.

“That’s your answer,” my grandmother told her daughter.

“If she was allergic to cats, my apo would have been brought to the

hospital the first time she entered this house. Besides, Lola knows

best.”

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My grandmother winked at me as if sharing a joke only the

two of us knew. I didn’t wink back because I was confused on who she

was referring to, the cat or herself.

One day, something happened that answered all my questions

about Lola. At the same time, my grandmother answered my questions

about her relationship with Lola.

It was late in the afternoon. I was about to say goodbye to my

grandmother and her cats when Lola sprang from my lap and left the

house.

I did all I could to keep from running out of the house and

following Lola. My grandmother told me to wait for her while she got

dressed.

When we reached the street in front of my grandmother’s

house, I looked around and found no trace of Lola.

“Oh no,” I said. “Lola’s gone.”

“Don’t worry, dear,” my grandmother said, patting my head.

“I know where she’s going.”

My grandmother and I walked a few blocks until we came to a

house with a lot of cars parked out front. She rang the doorbell. After

a short while, a woman opened the gate and invited us inside.

“How is your mother?” my grandmother asked the woman

once we were inside the house.

The woman answered, “She’s very weak. The doctor said she

could leave us at any time.”

“May I go in and say goodbye to her?” my grandmother asked.

“Of course. You’re one of her dearest friends in the

neighborhood,” said the woman.

When we entered the room, many people were waiting by

the bedside. Grandmother’s friend was lying on the bed with her

eyes closed and her chest gently rising and falling. Lola was curled up

between her arm and her chest.

As my grandmother and I approached, I noticed paw prints,

cat-sized, on the window behind the bed. Like us, Lola had been

invited in.

“I see somebody arrived before I did,” my grandmother said,

seeing Lola.

“Yes, we’re thankful that she did. Her arrival told us it was

time to say goodbye,” said the woman.

Others were crying in the room. I held back my tears the

entire time because I was a complete stranger who had no business

witnessing their grief.

My grandmother went to her friend’s side and whispered into

her ear. When she was done saying goodbye, my grandmother kissed

her friend on the cheek and stroked Lola’s fur. Lola never moved the

entire time we were in the room.

Once we were outside the house, I couldn’t hold back my

tears any longer. I hugged my grandmother as if we had no time left

together.

When the time comes, I hope I’ll have the same strength as

Lola to be at my grandmother’s side and stay with her until her breath

leaves her and her chest stops rising and falling.

5756

The Final Bullet

Her father called it a six-gun. A revolver. It no longer

boasted any paint or markings from its original make. Instead,

the weapon bore on its surface the colorful history of local gang

warfare. Its dry texture echoed the shape of polished bone. And

despite the cold nature of the metal, it felt very much alive.

Miriam watched her father bend the pistol forward, exposing

the gun’s cylinder to the open air. Nestled in its chambers, sparkling

like jewels in an otherwise unremarkable metal container, were four

gleaming copper bullets. Two chambers did not sport ammunition.

One of which had been scratched and warped to complete

deformation. No slug would be able to fit its opening. The only

thing this chamber held now was a half-burnt stick of cigarette. Her

father’s handiwork, no doubt.

“One chamber empty. For safety, one always empty” said

Miriam’s father as he took the cigarette out of the gun. “You set

the empty chamber next to the firing pin. This way, no accidental

discharge. If you want to use it properly, twist the cylinder until a

live round aligns with the barrel. Old guns, see? No safety.”

Miriam, only nine years of age, was unsure what to do with

this information. Only that it meant the world to her father that she

and her brother listen. Teodoro, on the other hand, was completely

enraptured. His wide eyes caught the glow of the candlelight and his

breathing slowed.

JACOB RAMOS

holds a BFA in both Creative Writing and Information Design from the Ateneo de Manila University.

He has published works in both Philippine Speculative Fiction and Philippine Genre Stories.

5958

“Only four?” Teodoro asked. His voice betrayed a hint of

disappointment.

Their father, a gimpy young man, scratched the stubble from

his long face. His ratty hair shook with every move.

“Had five before,” he laughed. “Accident. No one hurt, of

course. Just excited, you know? That’s when you both were born.

Tried to make many noises. For celebration.”

“Like today?” Teodoro beamed.

Their father nodded. “Today better. Today, your turn.”

The outside noises of the street became louder and the

sound of sheet metal slamming on concrete punctuated the din.

Tondo had always been unkind to its servants and on this particular

day, their mother was its plaything. The skin around her face was

pockmarked with dirt from the town. But it was the grime and

dust of the day that truly emphasized the lack of color on her face.

Exhausted, she let the roasted chicken in her hands topple onto the

makeshift table. The smile on her lips felt forced.

“Happy birthday,” she said to Miriam and Teodoro. The

twins leapt from their father’s side and encircled their mother.

Their mother’s eyes finally fell on their father. And then to

the gun in his hands. She scowled.

“Not in the house!” cried their mother.

Sensing the oncoming argument, Miriam dove for her

mother’s patchwork skirt and pulled twice. Already, she could hear

their father’s jovial yet defensive timbre rising behind her. And

as their mother protested, Miriam spoke again. Her voice barely

registered.

“I’ll be back later,” she whispered.

The two parents continued to argue as Miriam slipped

past them, towards the entrance. Teodoro said nothing, frowning

instead at her sudden departure. The door slammed behind her

and she emerged into an empty street, its surface caked in dried

mud. The weeds that had managed to break through the concrete

sidewalk held pieces of plastic and moldy paper. Bottles of beer,

long since broken into unhealthy shards of glass, dotted the ground,

earmarking whatever recent festivity managed to make its way

through the town. This was Tondo, Miriam figured. Not the best

place to be out at night.

She then pulled a newspaper clipping from her pocket and

unfolded it. The newspaper itself was two days old and the article

Miriam found was buried underneath pages of local news; of mob

arrests surrounding the local gangs; of indecent exposures and

drug-fueled crime. But if the article was correct, then the object she

was waiting for would reveal itself right around dusk and no later.

Scribbled onto the paper was a set of calculations she had made

with the assistance of her science teacher—an arcane collection of

mathematics that plotted movement quite precisely. Now was the

time to prove if they were right.

Miriam strained her neck upwards, her eyes skipping past the

webbing of electric wires that snaked their way to each ramshackle

home in their street. The skies were bright pink as light, reflected

from distant clouds, revealed tomorrow’s weather forecast. A storm

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was coming. But for the most part, the heavens were clear.

The first star winked into view. No, a planet. Venus, no

doubt. But moving across the horizon, barely skirting the limits of

perception, was a bright object darting from one edge of the sky to

the other. Not a star or a planet, Miriam knew. An object made by

mortal hands. An artificial satellite. The first of its kind.

When Miriam told her father of this news earlier this

morning, he was visibly unsettled. The communists again, her father

grumbled. She couldn’t understand why he appeared so disturbed

by it. Maybe even afraid.

A crash. The sound of glass shattering. And before that,

the muted bark of metal. Miriam then became noticeably aware

of a sharp pain in her leg. She winced and her eyes filled with hot

tears as she crumpled onto the concrete. People were screaming all

around her; the panicked cries of her mother, the angry tone of

her father. And little Teodoro, stunned beyond anything she could

recognize, watching her struggle on the ground as blood pooled by

her feet. In the ensuing chaos, no one thought to take the gun from

her brother’s grip.

The police would later explain that the bullet had arched in

the air and was thankfully not aimed directly at her. By sheer luck,

it had fallen where she stood, striking her left shin. This lessened the

damage and ultimately saved Miriam’s life.

And while this knowledge did little to lessen the sufferings of

a young child, Miriam could not stop thinking about Sputnik and

all its implications. Some of her father’s fears returned to her and

finally made sense.

Out there, for the first time in history, was a bullet that

simply refused to fall down.

* * *

Students from different dormitories all over the university’s

campus gathered around Ilang-Ilang Residence Hall’s common area

where a medium-sized television set had been put up. Most of them

were crowding around the screen to catch glimpses of Gloria Diaz

amongst the other international contenders and pixelated artifacts.

Despite the women-only restriction in the dorm, Miriam was

surprised to find Teodoro’s face among the male seniors that had

gathered there.

“Miss Philippines,” Bob Barker asked. The famous celebrity

host’s voice remained silky despite an ocean of separation. “In the

next day or so, a man will land on the moon. If a man from the

moon landed in your home town, what would you do to entertain

him?”

Many in the living room gasped, puzzling at the borderline

absurdity of the question. Miss Universe and the Man on the Moon.

In any other time, this would have been a ridiculous pairing between

two cosmopolitan figures. But as she stared at the moonlit lawn

outside, she felt a sense of historical inevitability surrounding these

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circumstances.

If Teodoro shared this incredulity, Miriam could not find it

in his face. Rather, the young man was sweating, his eyes shifting

every which way. It was at that moment that Miriam knew she

would not finish the pageant’s question and answer portion. She

stood up, offered her space to the nearest senior and began walking

out of the hall.

Ilang-ilang’s shape was unique among the other dormitories

on campus. The four different wings of the building encircled a

manicured lawn filled with Caimito trees. The scents of nectar and

moss brought about years of nostalgia. Teodoro, with little effort,

broke this illusion with his shadowy presence. His gangly form was

an aberration within an otherwise calm lawnscape. Hunched over

his shoulder was a large trash bag nearly bursting at the seams. The

students who saw him crossing immediately afforded him a wide

berth.

“You promised you’d have them finished by June,” Teodoro

scowled.

Miriam was more than annoyed. “I only said that I knew

how to do it. Helping you was different.”

“June!” he spat. “That was a month ago.”

Teodoro was barely recognizable these days. The young

impressionable child had grown glass eyes and dark layers of skin

underneath them. He did carry himself more confidently, however;

his childhood meekness replaced by a grin charismatic enough

to gain him followers. But most glaring in his ensemble was a

triangular tattoo by his neck. Inside the triangle, a lopsided letter

‘H’ resided. Miriam knew the symbol well as did many students on

campus. The Alibata equivalent of the letter “K.” The symbol of

the Katipunan; now reincorporated into the new student movement:

Kabataang Makabayan.

Miriam’s mind lingered on these thoughts as she and

Teodoro slowly made their way up the dorms. They skirted around

the prying eyes of residence assistants, hoping to remain unnoticed

for as long as possible. She then motioned Teodoro into silence as

they entered her room.

“You’re not listening, Miri,” Teodoro persisted. “Aren’t you

angry? Don’t you want things to change for all of us?”

“I don’t want to hurt people,” snapped Miriam. But her eyes

never left the trash bag dangling on her brother’s shoulders. She

could already smell the lingering scent of black powder and it called

to her like fresh coffee.

“Non-violent protests,” Teodoro corrected. “But we need

ways to defend ourselves. Marcos’ cronies have always been armed

to the teeth anyways.”

Miriam scoffed, her tone bitter. “Non-violent? The other

students tell me things about you, Teo. Even people inside your

circle are afraid of you. They say you’re dangerous. Often acting

alone. Always willing to start a fight.”

Her brother laughed, the smile never quite reaching the

eyes. “Don’t deny the fact that you were the one who begged me—

begged—to get you all of this.” The plastic bag was then dropped

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onto the dorm room floor. A small bundle of fireworks peeked right

through the bag. “All for you and your own weird group. Your own

useless ends.”

Miriam’s cheeks burned. She dug up a large conical rod from

within the trash bag. She recognized it as the leftover pyrotechnics

from last month’s Independence Day. Slowly, she tore off one end

of the firework and poured its dark entrails on a sheet of aluminum.

“Keep the contents dry, always,” Miriam instructed. “Never hot

either. Or you’ll lose a finger. Wrap the foil around the powder and

seal with adhesive. Electrical tape should be okay. If you use a fuse,

you can get a few seconds before it ignites.”

Teodoro stared intently but scratched his face. “I need it to

do more than lose a finger. Need it to hurt more people.”

The request came in two ways to Miriam: one side of her

brain was appalled, ready to wrestle the cocktail of explosives away

from her brother. The other saw it as a mathematical problem,

knowing full well the energies involved in a blast of this scale. “Most

military-grade grenades have higher explosive yields. You would

have to buy kilograms of black powder just to rival the kind of

plastique the army uses.”

Teodoro responded with his bare hands. “No money. Have

to make do with what we can get. But it has to be stronger.”

Miriam scratched her chin. It was an interesting conundrum.

“Most of the damage grenades make come from the shockwave,”

she mused. “But if we can’t make the explosion bigger, we can

try something else. We could load the explosive with dangerous

shrapnel, instead. It should multiply the damage. The perimeter

fences around some of the buildings here are studded with broken

glass. You can chip them off and apply them to the explosive. It

won’t kill anyone, I think. But fast-moving glass should be terrible

against bare skin.”

The smile on Teodoro’s face was full of teeth.

“But they will lose more than fingers, right?”

After a heartbeat, Miriam made a grab for the contents on

the table. Teodoro was faster, however. And stronger. And when

he pulled out the gun from his pocket, she knew he was far more

prepared than she was for this encounter. The weapon itself was a

piece of their personal history. The mere sight of it made her left leg

twitch.

“You’re going to make more,” Teodoro demanded. “I will

make sure you get your share. But you have to make more.”

Miriam stared past Teodoro’s shoulder, out the window,

beyond the tree line, and at the pale face of the moon. She wished

she were there now, where people were making history. Perhaps, a

dark thought announced as it welcomed itself into her mind, this

will too.

* * *

The Battle at Mendiola was, thankfully, just a bloodbath.

Not a massacre. Miriam consoled herself with this fact every few

minutes. Just four dead. Just a lot of blood. It was the lack of deaths

6766

that seemed to assuage her conscience best. Still, being in the

confines of a police penitentiary was enough to keep her on edge.

When the door opened, she nearly jumped.

Standing in the doorway was her brother. His face was split

open, held together by bandages and staples. He walked with a limp

as there was now a large puncture wound on his right foot. A fresh

trail of pus and ichor ended where he now sat. The smell nearly

made her gag. Worst of all was that the police could not be bothered

to lend the crippled man a pair of crutches. The only courtesy the

authorities did provide was the sense to give them their privacy.

When Teodoro smiled at her, his face crumpled into an even

worse pastiche of flesh. “We did it,” he said.

News of the student protest quickly devolving into violence

was still making its rounds weeks after the event. The Marcos

regime responded with impunity, cracking hard on the young

revolutionaries. Other activists had reportedly gone missing—most

likely dead. But the Kabataang Makabayan saw this all as a success.

And little of it would have been so effective if they were not so

adequately supplied with a cache of pillbox bombs and Molotov

cocktails.

It was only a matter of time until the authorities knew who

gave them the idea.

“We got them scared,” laughed Teodoro. “Made us look

serious. Tried to make that fascist pig put it down in writing, too. So

close.”

Miriam made a frantic grab for the collar of Teodoro’s tank

top. “You didn’t tell them about me, Teo, did you? This was your

fault, do you understand? Only you!”

“We did it,” Teodoro muttered. Miriam didn’t know what

bothered her more: his utter obliviousness to the current situation

or the satisfied smile on his blood-smeared lips. The man would

continue mumbling, “We did it” for hours.

“You stupid man!” Miriam cried. “Because of your actions,

the government will do their best to control the supply of black

powder now. It was already hard enough to get it without a license

before. But now, my group needs more of it! More!” And she

throttled Teodoro until drool settled on his chin.

“Crazy girl…” Teodoro whsipered. “Can’t you see that the

future of this country is bigger than your little games? Black powder

and bullets. Knives and guns. Your imagination is spread far too

thin, Miri. A gun is a weapon. Simple as that. And all guns kill.”

She had heard this spiel from her brother before. This

was a world of conflict, he once recited. Where the seat of power

belonged to those with the biggest sticks. And at the tip of every

spear, at the point of every arrow, at the edge of every blade, and

at the end of every barrel, only one thing waited for the poor souls

who cared little for power. And that was death. That was true for

the extinct Mammoth, for the fallen Spaniards, and for the former

residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But he was wrong about one thing, Miriam thought. Guns

were not dangerous. It was the bullets they hold. And not even all of

them were meant to kill.

6968

“Teo,” she began. The tone of her voice sliced through the

reverie and brought Teodoro back to the present. “Do you still have

dad’s gun?”

They stared at each other for what seemed like minutes.

Teodoro appeared uncertain as he pondered the question. Although

laughing was surely the most inappropriate response.

“I was able to hide it in my dorm right after I came back

from Mendiola,” Teodoro said. “Made sure the pulis couldn’t find it

there either. But you should find it easily.”

Miriam nodded. And after another brief pause, she asked,

“Aren’t you wondering why I want it?”

Teodoro laughed. But this time, Miriam found that the

smile finally reached his eyes. “First time I pulled the trigger on that

thing, I shot myself on the foot. Estupido. And after the second shot

missed a guard completely, I knew it wasn’t for me. So you know

what? I don’t care what you want it for. Your science experiments or

your bombs, I don’t care. But it should stay in the family.”

All the violence and blood, Miriam could hear internally, it

should stay in the family.

Miriam stood up and nodded, taking this as her cue to leave.

But before she could walk away, Teodoro grabbed her hand. She

was faintly aware of the dried blood that was now being smeared

on her skin. Whether her brother was doing this intentionally or by

accident, she wasn’t sure.

“There’s still one bullet left in the gun, Miri,” said Teodoro.

For a moment, Miriam thought he was threatening her. But then,

the crippled young man began to sob. “One bullet. Be careful.”

* * *

“I still don’t understand why I’m here.”

The air above Lake Caliraya carried Teo’s voice over the

long stretch of water. And because there wasn’t a single cloud

anywhere, visibility was clear for miles. There was also the faint

sensation that the lake was much higher than sea level. A shortness

of breath, maybe. Or an overabundance of sky. It was the perfect

place to watch the New Year’s festivities. People were already

gathering around a nearby sandbar, extending telescopes and tiny

rockets into the sky.

Miriam pointed at a heavyset old man surrounded by other

people who seemed just as bewildered to be here. “You see that guy?

Mister Vergara was committed for arson. The young woman behind

him has charges of manslaughter held against her. Shot up her

boyfriend. The one with the neckerchief fought in the Vietnam war.

Shell-shocked.”

Miriam watched as Teodoro dragged his wheelchair into the

mud. The marsh surrounding them did not take kindly to the rubber

wheels. At some point, Miriam knew, Teo was going to have to walk.

“So this is what your group does?” Teodoro asked. There

was a little more bite in his words than Miriam would have liked.

“Therapy? Rehabilitation? In college, you made it sound like you

were on some grand mission.”

7170

The wheelchair came to a stop at last and Miriam pulled out

a cane for her brother to latch on to. Eight years of prison made her

brother slow, lethargic, and averse to be around wide-open spaces.

Convincing her brother to come was herculean enough. Thankfully,

Teodoro did not complain when offered the cane this time around.

“The social work is secondary to the science,” Miriam

explained. “But it’s what lets us get away with what we have already.

And it’s good PR. Anything to get Ombudsman whatshisname and

the other senators to agree is a good thing. Not to mention allowing

us use of this private land.”

“And the military?” Teodoro asked. “I heard they’ve been

trying to reach you too.”

Miriam marveled at her own propensity to shrug off another

verbal jab. “They can beg all they want. They’re never taking this

from me. Ever.”

Teodoro, however, did not appear convinced.

That was when a loud hiss erupted from the shoreline. The

air cracked and then split in two. Startled, Teodoro dropped the

cane and collapsed into the sand. A little part of Miriam secretly

enjoyed the shock to her brother.

Overhead, trailed by a thread-thin pillar of smoke, a rocket

flew. It lasted seconds. And then the sound dissipated. Wind coming

in from the east spread the trail of smoke so that its ghostly features

haunted the rest of the lake. Those who were not bothered by

Teodoro’s shouting began to clap at the spectacle. The few that were

alarmed by the crippled man collapsing warrily made their way to

assist him.

“Ma’am Dealca?” called a moon-faced young girl. Miriam

remembered her from one of her classes. “Is he okay?” the child

persisted.

Miriam lowered herself against her brother, positioning the

latter’s legs so he could sit upright on the sand. Teodoro seemed to

be elsewhere. He shivered with no obvious reason as to why. Still,

the man’s eyes were transfixed skyward.

“It’s all right,” Miriam said to the growing crowd. “Just keep

to the schedule.”

The moon-faced girl nodded and ushered everyone else

away.

“Wow,” said Teodoro. “They actually listen to you.”

Miriam laughed. “Within reason. I keep them busy and that

keeps them in line. Plus, the work’s demanding. Really demanding.

That’s how I get the rehabilitees to focus.”

After five minutes, the two siblings managed to get back on

their feet. But Teodoro set his eyes to the sky again, steeling himself

against the possibility of another eruption of noise.

“I still don’t see how putting explosives into the hands

of dangerous people can be a good idea. I wouldn’t call missiles

‘therapeutic’ under any context.”

Miriam dragged her brother towards one of the encircled

groups and told them to move away. This was her project now. And

as the crowd receded, Teodoro gasped as he spotted the object they

had gathered around: a black obelisk that stood one meter tall. Even

7372

her hardened brother could not deny that there was something

potent about the simplicity of a rocket. It reminded her of the

unmarred features of a scalpel. And scribbled on the rocket’s spine

were the painted letters of their hobbyist society: The Fifth Bullet.

Their logo was that of a row of bullets; only, the one in the center

had jumped ahead of the others and taken off to parts unknown.

“It’s clear,” said Miriam, ending her last round of visual

inspections. “Let’s join the others before we become part of a new

crater.”

But Teodoro did not move. He still seemed fixated on the

rocket, his fingers lightly brushing against the insignia painted on its

skin.

“This name… Miri… Dad’s handgun. What did you do with

the last bullet?”

Miriam made sure nothing distracted them as they made

quick work crossing the final stretch of the sandbar. At the edge of

the lake was a designated viewing area the younger ones jokingly

called ‘Mission Control.’ This version, however, was the shoestring,

budget of its professional counterpart. And it was glorious. Here,

sand mixed terribly with all the cabling and metal switches. Miriam

noted that they should have set up some tarpaulins on the ground to

protect the delicate electronics.

Then began the terminal count. Someone started counting

backwards and that was all anyone could do before their voices

mixed into one cohesive whole. Miriam thought of it as the most

unifying exercise their group ever performed. It was mathematics in

song. It was her life’s work coming to a crescendo.

“The bullet, Miri” Teodoro whispered again. Her brother’s

mumblings were distinct amidst the growing noise. “What did you

do with the rest of it?”

A dozen alibis came to Miriam’s mind.

She could have explained that the first bullet was fired long

before they were born. It was made of stone and was only as strong

as the person who tossed it. These bows, slingshots, and spears

brought people their food and protected their families from would-

be predators.

The second bullet would probably be a more familiar

sight. It carried gunpowder so it no longer relied on muscle alone.

These were not clumsy rounds. Instead, they granted the complete

certainty of the kill.

The third bullet was filled with black powder and was

even larger. It was never enough to end one life so these shells

were designed to take away entire communities. It advertised the

wholesale destruction of buildings, neighborhoods, and towns.

Never to be outdone, the fourth bullet assured utter

annihilation. It was meant to be the bullet to end all wars. These

warheads fired with little warning and needed no gun. At its heart, it

bore the power of the atom and unleashed hellfire that burned long

after the bullet itself was scrap.

“Where is the last bullet?” Teodoro demanded.

At zero, the rocket on the launchpad leaped. There was an

eagerness to the device that Miriam and everyone there completely

respected. This blunt force was what people like Teodoro chased

after. But in reality, there was power here that could do more than

just maim.

The homemade missile continued to rise until the last of its

fuel reserves were depleted. Then it crested its highest point and

spiraled into a dive.

This, Miriam believed, was what Teodoro could not

understand. Because if he could be convinced that bullets were

more than just weapons, then he would have known that the last

bullet was something else.

The fifth bullet could carry people. And take them to the

moon.